


Let's Paint the Town Red

by chilope



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crime, Drugs, Fake AH Crew, M/M, Minor Character Death, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-05-23 17:00:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6123346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chilope/pseuds/chilope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything was going perfectly fine until a mute lunatic showed up and turned the world upside down. Hopefully the city will still be standing by the time he's done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

It was quiet in the Vinewood hills. The burning end of a cigarette stood out against the inky blackness of the night, the smoker just visible in the moonlight. “They’re late,” he said, before taking a long drag. His curly brown hair was buried under a beanie, his brown leather jacket tight around his hunched shoulders. 

“They’re fuckers,” the older man next to him responded, pulling up a heavily tattooed arm to glance at his watch impatiently. The two men were leaning on the trunk of an old muscle car, the faint imprint of guns visible through their jackets. “Ray, any sign of ‘em?”

A hundred yards away, the barrel of a sniper rifle peeked through the leaves of a tall tree, indistinguishable from the branches in the night. “I can’t see the road from here, the trees are too dense.” Ray adjusted his position on the branch slightly, hoping to relieve some of the pressure from his sleeping leg. 

“Then why the hell are you there?!” the tattooed man demanded, turning his head almost imperceptibly to the left. 

Ray closed his eyes momentarily and sighed, quiet enough that the mic didn’t catch it. “Geoff. This is the only tree with a clear shot of the meeting spot. If there was anywhere else I could be sitting, preferably somewhere that wasn’t a tree, believe me, I would be there.”

Geoff shifted his weight, shuffling his feet back and forth in the dirt and glancing around irritably. “I don’t like this,” he says his mustache twitching. “Michael, you’re sure they said 11:30?” 

“I’m sure,” Michael responds, taking one last drag from the cigarette before flicking it several feet away. 

Ray’s voice crackled through his ear piece, “What the fuck man, you’re gonna start a forest fire!” 

“Shut the fuck up, Smokey,” Michael responded, glaring several yards to the left of Ray. “You better not be pointing that thing at me with the safety off.” 

Ray’s voice crackles into his ear again, “Haha right yeah, the safety, I definitely had the safety on the whole time.” He’s joking, but he quickly glances toward the safety knob anyway. “Oh wait, I see lights,” his voice turns serious and he straightens up as best he can in the cramped space. Michael and Geoff turn toward the sound of a vehicle approaching, hands moving toward the guns stashed in their pockets. 

A car pulls into the clearing, the headlights momentarily blinding the two men already standing there. The engine cuts out, and four people emerge from behind the doors. Geoff walks toward one of them, his hand outstretched and a smile on his face. “Anatoly, nice to see you!” Anatoly extends his hand toward Geoff, returning the smile and moving in for a hug. Michael nods toward one of the other men but doesn’t say anything, his arms crossed to hide the fact that he’s gripping the hilt of his gun. 

Anatoly beams and holds Geoff at arm’s length, inspecting him. “How long’s it been, friend? A year?” 

Geoff’s laughter fills the clearing, the sound echoing through the otherwise quiet woods. “You never call anymore! What, you just got too big for the likes of me?” The words are jovial and friendly, but Ray snickers. No one in the world can bullshit like Geoff. 

Anatoly shrugs his shoulders apologetically in response, but then nods toward the muscle car. “You got what I ordered?” 

Geoff nods curtly at Michael, who unlocks the trunk and pulls it open. The inside is filled to the brim with bricks of cocaine. One of Anatoly’s men walks over and inspects it, picking up a brick and turning it around his hands. “Fresh outa the kitchen,” Geoff says, smiling at Anatoly. The inspector nods at his boss, replacing the brick in the trunk. One of the other men pulls a duffel bag out of the back seat of the other car and hands it to Geoff, who is no longer smiling. He turns to Anatoly, his eyebrows raised. “There is no way you fit 1.5 million dollars in this bag.” Anatoly shrugged his shoulders in feigned embarrassment. 

A hundred yards away in a tree, the safety on a sniper rifle switched off. 

At some point Anatoly had moved so that the inspector and the man that had retrieved the bag were between him and Geoff. Michael reached for his gun and the two henchmen shifted to block his view of Anatoly. “Well I wasn’t very well going to drive around with over a million dollars in my car, was I?” Anatoly’s voice was full of mock innocence, and he smiled at Geoff despite the obvious tension. 

“I drove around with fifty kilos of cocaine in my trunk, asshole, so yeah, I kind of expected you to deliver.” Geoff’s voice carried through the woods, his fury barely contained. He threw the bag back toward Anatoly, who was still smiling, his posture relaxed. 

“Calm down, friend,” he said, as if Geoff was overreacting to a joke. “That’s only half the payment. I was thinking I could pay you the rest with a favor.” 

Geoff set Anatoly with a withering glare, all pretense of friendliness gone. “That wasn’t the deal,” he said. “The last thing I need is a favor from you.”

Anatoly’s smile curled up at the edges. “You don’t even want to hear what I had in mind?”

Geoff straightened up, only realizing he had been clenching his fists when he loosened them. “Make it fast.” 

Anatoly turned his head slightly toward the only one of his men not standing in front of him, who opened the back door of the car and pulled out a tall man in a skull mask. Michael shifted uncomfortably and glanced at Geoff, whose face had gone white. Ray stopped breathing momentarily, but made sure to train the scope of his rifle at the masked man’s head. Geoff glanced at the twist ties that were binding his hands. 

“You expect me to accept this as _payment_?” Geoff said, looking the man up and down. 

“Are you kidding?” Anatoly responded. “I gift-wrapped him for you!” He gestured toward the ties around the man’s wrists. “I’m handing you the Vagabond, complete with a bow and everything, you really expect me to believe you don’t want him?” 

“Geoff,” Ray breathed into the mic desperately. “This is a set-up. I have the shot. Please let me take it.” 

Michael had his gun out and pointed directly at the Vagabond. Anatoly laughed again, the sound grating on everyone’s nerves. “Geoff, please, you know me, you know I wouldn’t dare double-cross you.”

“He’s lying,” Ray hissed. His finger was tensed on the trigger of his rifle, still pointed directly at the mask. 

“This asshole isn’t worth over half a mil,” Geoff spit the words at the Vagabond’s feet, disgust evident in his voice. 

Anatoly clapped the masked man on the back. “Oh he’s worth a hell of a lot more than that,” he said. “Frankly I’m giving you a bargain. Consider it a token of our friendship.”

“Geoff,” Michael hissed. Geoff’s face was screwed up in concentration, considering. 

“Why are you trying to get rid of him?” He asked finally. 

Anatoly wasn’t smiling anymore. He shrugged, trying to look nonchalant, but the movement was too rough and forced. “I don’t really play the torture game anymore. Figured you could make better use of him than I could.” 

“This is a terrible fucking idea,” Ray was saying into the mic. “Like, an absolutely catastrophically horrible idea.” He could see Geoff’s face set as he made his mind. 

“Fine,” he said. 

“Fuck,” Ray whispered. Michael clenched his teeth, reaching out to grab the Vagabond’s shoulder as he moved toward their car. “We’re all gonna fucking die. We’re dead. He’s going to kill us.” 

Geoff shook Anatoly’s hand while his henchmen moved the bricks to their own car. Michael steered the Vagabond into the back seat and then waited for Geoff to finish with Anatoly. 

“I always love doing business with you,” Anatoly said, a sleazy smile plastered across his face. Geoff grimaced and didn’t say anything. He waited patiently for the other car to peel haphazardly out of the clearing before placing the duffel bag full of money in the trunk and climbing into the driver’s seat. Ray was still swearing under his breath into the mic. Michael clambered into the passenger seat, glancing back at the new addition. 

“So uh,” he said. “What are you planning on doing with him?” The man was sitting with his hands in his lap, the mask rendering it impossible to tell where he was looking. Geoff turned the car on without answering and headed back to the road. 

Ray climbed down from the tree, swearing gently as the foliage caught on his clothes. “I fucking hate nature,” he cursed. “I am never sniping from a tree again. Ever.” Michael snorted in response. When Ray finally reached the road, the car was already waiting for him. He threw his sniper rifle into the trunk and then slipped into the back seat, refusing to look anywhere but out the window. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, and turned to find the Vagabond staring more or less right at him. “You need something?” he asked. The other man didn’t answer or look away. Ray rolled his eyes again and turned back to the window. “Fucking joy.”


	2. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robbing folks and making friends.

“You did _what?!_ ” Jack’s voice was just barely below a shriek. They were back at Fake AH headquarters, Gavin sitting cross-legged on a pristine white couch while the rest of the crew stood in a broken semi-circle around the Vagabond. Jack was looking between the new guy and Geoff, who was looking anywhere but at Jack. 

“It was an amazing deal! I wasn’t about to pass that up!” Geoff insisted. “Anatoly was right, he’s worth way more than a half a mil. Hell, I’d have given him the whole package for this asshole if he’d asked.” 

Jack looked absolutely scandalized. “He could still be working for Anatoly, Geoff! Did you ever think about that? This whole thing could be a setup, Jesus Christ.” Jack threw his hands in the air and walked across the room to the window, breathing hard. 

“Seriously, Geoff,” Michael said, his arms crossed and brow furrowed. “What are you even planning on doing with him? I doubt we’ll get anything out of him if we torture him.”

“Of course not,” Geoff responded, a smile creeping onto his face. “We’re gonna hire him!” Everyone in the room froze, tensing, and then looked at the Vagabond. He was tall and built, his leather jacket clinging loosely around his biceps. He was still wearing the mask, the twist ties still binding his wrists, and he seemed completely unaffected by the job offer.

Without moving, Michael yelled, “ _WHAT?!_ Under no circumstances can we hire this guy, he’s a fucking psychopath! Have you _seen_ the shit he pulled for Anatoly?”

Geoff tilted his head patronizingly at Michael. “Of course I have, that’s why I want to hire him!” 

“Are you nuts?” Ray finally spoke up. He was still wearing the black clothes he’d chosen for the stakeout, but now he had a purple hoodie wrapped loosely around his narrow shoulders. “Listen, I know what you’re thinking, but there’s no way we can trust him.” 

Everyone looked toward the Vagabond, all vaguely aware of how weird it was to be talking about him as if he wasn’t there. He, however, seemed hardly to notice at all, the mask turning slowly to indicate that he was inspecting the apartment. 

“Guys, trust me, I know how people like his operate,” Geoff was waving his hands placatingly, turning to look each of them in the eye. “Money is the only language that matters, and we definitely have enough of that.” This much was certainly true – Fake AH was by far the wealthiest crew in Los Santos. 

From the other side of the room, Jack sighed, placing his hands in the pockets of his jeans and turning back toward the group. “Did it ever cross your mind, Geoff,” he began. “That there might be a really good reason why Anatoly handed him to us? Just like that? I mean, you said it yourself, the Vagabond is worth a hell of a lot more than he sold him for.” 

Geoff looked at Jack seriously, his face completely set. “I know what I’m doing,” he said, his voice calm. “I need you guys to trust me.” He glanced around at the crew again, taking each of them in. Michael stared him down stubbornly, but Ray looked away. “There’s a reason they call me the Kingpin,” Geoff continued. “I know what I’m doing.”

The Vagabond continued to stand in the middle of the room, head tilted to the side, staring toward the sliding glass doors that led to the balcony. 

\---

“Alright, here’s the deal. I need to know that you can follow orders.” Geoff was crouched in the space between a large van and a weathered brick wall, the masked Vagabond next to him. “If you do well, you get paid well, got it?” The Vagabond did not respond, simply stared back at Geoff attentively. “Okay, then,” Geoff forged on. “Here’s what you’re gonna do. Michael is gonna rush in, make the demands, and then get out. You’re his back-up. All you need to do is stand there and look intimidating.” The Vagabond continued to stare at Geoff with speaking. “Good. Okay. Gavin and I will hold the street in case any cops show up. As soon as you’re out, we’ll take off in the van with Jack, you cover Ray while he gets down and then head back on the bike.” He nodded his head toward the alley across the street, where a motorcycle was already waiting.

Geoff raised his eyebrows at the mask as it continued to stare at him impassively. A voice crackled into everyone’s ears, “You two look really suspicious right now,” Ray said. He was watching them through the scope of his rifle again. “We should probably get started.” 

Geoff glanced toward the roof where he knew Ray to be sitting, but didn’t see him. “Alright fuckers, let’s heist.”

It was a small job, and the crew moved together effortlessly. Any two of them could have pulled it off alone, but Geoff wanted to see them all working together in a relatively low-stakes job. The clerk put his hands up as soon as he saw Michael and the Vagabond enter the gas station, emptying the register with barely any prompting. Michael smiled at him, and then shot him through the chest anyway. They ran back into the street, where Jack was already waiting with the van, and everyone piled in. The Vagabond tore across the street, clutching his rifle tightly, and threw his legs over the bike, while Ray half climbed, half slid down the fire escape. 

Police sirens flared up in the distance as Ray swung onto the bike and wrapped one arm around the Vagabond. “Go!” he yelled, and the bike roared to life and tore into the street. Ray’s sniper rifle was already collapsed in his backpack, so he pulled out a pistol and prepared to fire at any cops that caught up to them. The Vagabond sped through several alleyways, weaving through traffic until the sound of the sirens faded completely. Ray yelled over the sound of the wind whipping past his ears, “The penthouse is the other way.” The Vagabond made no sign of having heard him, continuing to race toward the hills. Ray groaned, but put the pistol away so he could hold on tighter. 

Ten minutes later, Ray realized that they were circling around. Going straight to the penthouse would have required driving near the swarming police; this way, they avoided them entirely. Ray rolled his eyes, the wind pushing his glasses back so that they dug into his face. The Vagabond was driving much faster than necessary and it made Ray’s stomach turn a little. He would have taken on a hundred Los Santos cops if it meant he didn’t have to stay on the back of the bike any longer. 

When the two men finally walked through the door of the penthouse, Geoff stopped pacing back and forth and started yelled. “Where the hell were you guys?!” His mustache bristled. “I thought they got you, Jesus Christ, why the hell did it take you so long?” 

The Vagabond walked straight past him and into the kitchen, where he pulled a diet coke out of the refrigerator. Ray and Geoff watched him go, lost for words. “Uh,” Ray said. “We circled around to avoid the cops.” The Vagabond walked back to the entry way where Ray and Geoff were still standing, diet coke in hand, and continued to not say anything. 

“What the hell did you do that for?” Geoff asked, incredulous. “There were like four cops, you could have taken them easily.” 

Ray snorted and moved further into the house. “Beats the fuck outa me.”

Geoff and the Vagabond stared at each other, or at least Geoff stared at the Vagabond. The mask still hid the man’s line of site and his expression. After several uncomfortable beats he walked to the back of the apartment, where his bedroom was located. “Un-fucking-believable,” Geoff whispered. 

Gavin was sitting on the couch next to Michael, Xbox controller in hand, giggling quietly. “Technically,” he said. “He did do what you said, Geoffrey.” 

Geoff shot him a look as he sat down in a chair, grabbing the glass of whiskey he had set on the table after they got back. Jack leaning against a wall, his expression unreadable. “Well, uh, I’m gonna take my smoke break now,” Ray said to no one in particular, as he headed back out through the front door. He moved to the roof of the building and into a secluded corner between an air vent and the safety barrier. The ground was littered with old cigarette butts and empty bottles. 

The sky was starting to dim, the first stars just barely peeking out. Ray sat on one of the two folding chairs situated against the air vent, and then pulled a cigarette out of the pack in his back pocket and lit it. He grabbed the scope for his rifle out of his backpack and looked through it to the windows in the building several blocks over. Most of the lights were on, and there were people moving around inside. In one window, Ray could see a woman bustling around a kitchen, several children moving into and out of view as they ran around the house. He watched them, the cigarette burning low in his mouth, until he heard footsteps crunching across the gravel of the roof. 

Ray froze, stashing the scope in the pocket of his hoodie and pulling out his pistol. He stood up as quietly as he could, moving so he could peek around the air vent that was currently blocking the intruder from view. He cursed under his breath when he spotted the Vagabond, back toward Ray, his mask tilted up slightly so he could drink from the can he was holding. He went completely still, and then his free hand moved to the gun strapped to his belt. 

Ray dropped his arms and straightened up, letting his pistol swing loosely in his grasp. “Calm down, it’s just me,” he said, his voice coming out bored and frustrated. The Vagabond turned his head slightly in Ray’s direction, then pulled his mask down so it was covering his face completely again. He walked to the corner where Ray was now sitting once more, another cigarette burning between his teeth, sniper scope back in his hand. The Vagabond sat down, hands resting lightly in his lap, and looked toward the building Ray was watching. 

“So what are you doing up here, anyway?” Ray asked, moving the cigarette from his mouth to his spare hand.

The Vagabond didn’t respond, choosing instead to stare straight ahead. 

Ray looked away from the window finally, his eyebrows raised. “Please tell me this is some sort of weird prank.” The Vagabond didn’t respond, just tilted his head slightly in Ray’s direction. “Dear God,” Ray whispered, returning to his people-watching. “He’s a psychopath _and_ a mute lunatic. Fucking perfect.” 

The Vagabond leaned his head back so that he was facing the sky, stretching out his absurdly long legs as he did so. Ray glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “At least tell me you have, like, a real name or something.” The Vagabond made no indication that he had heard him. Ray rolled his eyes for what felt like the thousandth time since the Vagabond had joined them. 

They sat in silence for several hours as the city grew dark and quiet below them. One by one, the lights in the opposite building went out, until Ray finally stowed the scope back in his backpack and stood up, stretching. The Vagabond turned his head toward the slice of belly that peeked out below Ray’s shirt as yawned, but then returned his gaze to the stars. “Right, well, I’m gonna call it a night, later buddy.” Ray clapped the other man on the shoulder a little too forcefully as he headed back into the building. When he was halfway to his room, his phone chimed. 

Ray pulled it out of his pocket, the screened shining brightly with a new message from an unknown number. 

“Ryan,” it read, simply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh.


	3. III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Vagabond is very good at what he does. TW - blood, torture, etc

The concrete floor of the warehouse had turned a deep crimson, the puddles of blood clinging lightly to the wooden legs of an old chair. The man who sat on it, hands tied to the wooden armrests by plastic zip-ties, was young and handsome and barely conscious. His eyes rested lazily on the place where his knee had once connected his thigh to his calf. It had been nearly an hour since he had finally stopped screaming, the sound watery and choked as it reverberated through the otherwise empty warehouse. Now, there was a leather belt holding a wet, sticky cloth around his nub, attempting to hold most of his blood inside him. 

Every few moments, his wrists would strain against the zip-ties as the muscles in his back tensed in pain, the spasms rocking his body. A deep sigh filled the space around him, sounding bored and a little tired. “Clark,” Geoff said, standing and walking toward the man in the chair, carefully avoiding the rivers of blood seeping across the dusty floor. “Clark buddy. Come on. We all want to go home.” The man – Clark – didn’t respond. Geoff threw his head back and groaned loudly. “Clark! Buddy! Please tell me who sold out my safe house. That’s all I want to know and then this can all be over.” 

Clark raised his head, the effort sending shudders through his whole body, and looked Geoff in the eye. “Fuck off,” he spit, his voice hoarse. Geoff smiled sadly and shook his head, then moved back to where he had been sitting. 

He picked up a glass next to his chair and took a long drink from it, then nodded at the tall, masked figure standing next to him. “Keep going,” he said. 

The Vagabond gripped the metal pipe that had been hanging loosely at his side, swinging it around a few times as he stepped toward Clark. The man’s eyes had glazed over again and he was shaking from head to foot. The Vagabond’s boots left imprints in the sticky puddles of blood as he made his way to the chair, so calm and self-assured that he practically sashayed. His expression was unreadable behind the mask as he looked down at the bound man in front of him. A sudden _crack_ announced the pipe hitting Clark across the chest and shoulders, a second _crack_ when it landed on the side of his head. The bound man gasped, an hour ago what would have been a cry was now a strangled choke. Lights popped behind his eyes and it was all he could do not to pass out. 

The Vagabond studied him for a moment, then dropped the pipe unceremoniously and pulled out a knife. The ice in Geoff’s glass made a clinking noise as he shifted, smiling. Clark did not bother to react as the Vagabond walked to his side and turned Clark’s head gently, his thumb brushing lightly against Clark’s chin until his head was resting on his shoulder. The Vagabond placed the knife against the base of his now exposed ear and pressed in gently, looking at Geoff. 

“Come on, Clark,” Geoff said, uncrossing and then recrossing his legs. “It doesn’t have to be like this. All I need is a name.” He looked at Clark, who was shaking worse than ever, on the verge of tears. Geoff sighed again and nodded at the Vagabond, who ran the knife through Clark’s ear without a word. The severed piece fell to the floor and the sound of screaming once again filled the large space. Geoff let his head fall back. “Oh my Goooood,” he groaned. “Is he ever gonna stop?” The Vagabond looked at Geoff, who rolled his eyes. “Right. I don’t know why I bother.” Then he rose and walked toward the door, raising his voice so his associate could hear him over the screaming, “Make sure he doesn’t die!”

As the door to the warehouse closed behind him, the sound disappeared almost completely. Ray and Gavin looked up at him, eyebrows raised questioningly. Geoff huffed and pulled out a cigarette. “His fucking screaming is driving me crazy,” he said, putting the cigarette in his mouth and lighting it. 

Ray’s stomach was turning. He hadn’t wanted to come in the first place, he hated torture, but Michael was busy on another job. So here he was, sitting outside of a warehouse on a sunny Tuesday afternoon listening to a thug scream through the blood in his throat. “He still isn’t talking?” he asked. 

Geoff snorted and scuffed his shoe into the parking lot. “Nope. Motherfucker refuses to let up.” 

“I don’t get what he’s so clammed up about,” Gavin said. He kept glancing toward the door of the warehouse as the screams inside died down and then erupted again. Ray picked absentmindedly at his arm, his eyes unfocused. 

The screaming stopped very suddenly and then Geoff’s phone chimed. He pulled it open and smiled grimly at the message – “Caleb.” 

“That son of a fucking bitch,” Geoff whispered. 

The door opened and the Vagabond stepped out, blood clinging to his leather jacket and staining his jeans. He put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall of the warehouse next to Ray. Geoff smiled brightly at him. “I knew you were a good investment,” he said. The Vagabond didn’t respond, just let his head fall back and hit the wall. Geoff turned to Gavin, “Can you pull the car through the bay door? We’ll need to get his body in the trunk.” Gavin nodded and stood, stretching luxuriously before walking toward the car. 

Ray had not seen the inside of the warehouse since they had first brought Clark there. The only light spilled in through a cracked window near the roof, softly illuminating the floor below. Clark was slumped over in the chair, blood draining from the gaping wound on the side of his face. “Jesus,” Ray whispered. There were small but deep cuts all over his face, ones that hadn’t been there when Geoff left. Blood oozed from them slowly. Ray bent down to cut the zip-ties that were holding the man to the chair and noticed that all of his fingernails were missing. “Vagabond” was carved into the skin of his forearm. Ray looked up at Geoff, who raised his eyebrows when he saw it. 

Geoff shrugged. “Whatever gets me results.” Ray felt his stomach lurch, but continued to release the dead man from his bonds. Gavin backed the car to where Ray and Geoff had laid out a tarp to hold the body. He opened the trunk and leaned against the bumper, watching the other men work. Geoff grabbed the arms and pulled Clark out of the chair, making his head loll unnaturally backwards. Gavin gagged and started cursing – there was a long slice across Clark’s throat, stretching from one ear to the next, reaching halfway through his neck. His head dangled loosely, a look that was made far more unsettling by the fact that his eyes were still open. 

“Fuck!” Ray yelled, moving several feet back from the corpse. “Jesus Christ. What the fuck!” He felt himself back into something solid, and turned to find himself face to chest with the skull mask. The Vagabond was standing with his hands still in his pockets, his shoulders relaxed, his head tilted to the side as if out of curiosity. Ray noticed, unhelpfully, that there were drops of blood slowly making their way down the mask, a few more trickling down the Vagabond’s exposed neck. He turned back to Geoff. “This is _fucked_ ,” he half whispered. 

Geoff seemed slightly unsettled but cast Ray a stern look. “Let’s just get this asshole in the car so we can find Caleb.” Ray briefly considered refusing, but before he could do anything the Vagabond brushed past him. He lifted Clark onto the tarp unceremoniously, along with his severed leg and ear, and then rolled him up and placed the whole thing in the trunk of the car. “Right,” Geoff announced. “Let’s get out of here.” 

Gavin raced for the passenger side seat, slamming the door shut and clicking his seat belt into place before Ray even had a chance to move. The Vagabond climbed into the back and Ray followed reluctantly. The inside of the car smelled like blood and sweat. Ray squeezed himself as close to the door as he could manage and rolled his window down. Next to him the Vagabond let his head fall back, relaxing into the black leather seat. The movement drew Ray’s eye, and he couldn’t help but notice the light scars that peeked out from beneath the mask, the scabs and congealed blood clinging to his knuckles. _Ryan_ , Ray thought. _Fuck._

\---

The penthouse was quiet that night. Geoff had decided to go alone with Jack to find Caleb, leaving Michael and Gavin free to get heroically wasted at a bar downtown. Ray was glad to have the house to himself for a few hours. He decided to waste away the evening cleaning up some achievements, sitting on the couch while the house grew dark around him. It took him a moment to realize that the Vagabond was standing behind the couch, watching the TV screen. 

Ray’s heart exploded and he jumped, dropping the Xbox controller on the floor in the process. “Jesus fuck, dude,” he said, glaring. “If you’re gonna watch at least sit on the couch like a normal person.” The mask lit up slightly as the Vagabond – as Ryan – pulled his phone out and began to type something. Moments later, Ray’s phone chimed. 

“I didn’t want to scare you.” It said. 

Ray looked back at Ryan, his eyebrows arched so high they disappeared into his hair. “You were trying _not_ to scare me?” he asked, incredulous. Ryan walked around the couch and sat down at the point furthest from Ray. Ray noticed that he wasn’t wearing his leather jacket for once. Instead, a black t-shirt was stretched over his biceps and chest, in Ray’s opinion at least one size too small. Ryan crossed his arms and placed his bare feet on the glass coffee table. “You wanna play?” Ray asked him, holding up the controller. Ryan shook his head, the first non-text response Ray had ever gotten from him. “Whatever man.” He returned to his game, mowing down enemies with expert precision, and very slowly, the tension in Ryan’s shoulders started to melt away. 

“So,” Ray began. “ _Ryan._ Where are you from? What did you do before this?” Unsurprisingly, Ryan did not respond, but Ray was not deterred. “What I’m thinking is, you used to be a baker. Like a world class baker, living in Vancouver. Your cupcakes won first prize at the fair every year.” Ryan turned his face in Ray’s direction but Ray didn’t take his eyes off the screen, his fingers still blazing over the buttons on the controller. “I think that you had, like, a wife. And a dog. And then some gangsters rolled into town and started giving you the shake-down, right?” He looked toward Ryan briefly as the match ended, a reflex from talking to unmasked people, but Ryan was still impossible to read behind the skull. Ray turned back to his game. 

“So the gangsters keep trying to take all of your money, coming in once a week to rough you up, until one day you get totally sick of it and just go off on one of them.” He glanced over at Ryan again when his character died, but the mask was pointed back at the TV. “But then their boss retaliates and totally murders your whole family, like brutally just destroys them, body parts all over the place, dog hanging from a fence post, the whole nine yards. And when you come home and see them you just fucking lose it. You go around killing off the gangsters one by one, stacking their bodies up in their boss’s yard.” Ray paused again to turn to Ryan and noticed that his shoulders were moving up and down, his hands pressing into his stomach. 

“Holy shit,” Ray said. “Are you laughing?” He shoved Ryan’s shoulder lightly, smiling. Ryan stopped moving and slouched further back into the couch, his eyes back on Ray. Slowly, he pulled out his phone and swiped around on the screen, then moved closer to Ray until their legs were pressed together. He handed Ray the phone and then draped his arm over the back of the couch, his hand resting less than an inch from Ray’s shoulder. On the phone was a picture of a dog, an excitable three-legged brown lab. Ray frowned. “Please tell me gangsters didn’t actually kill your dog,” he said. Ryan shook his head no and then took his phone back, replacing it in his pocket. Ray turned back to his game, neither noticing nor caring that Ryan didn’t move back to the other side of the couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao @ myself for switching tenses so much the last two chapters. I will try to stop doing that.


	4. IV

The sun was just barely peeking over the horizon, casting long beams of light across the ground, and Ray was cursing. His chest was pressed tightly to Ryan’s back, his stomach lurching when Ryan turned so hard that the tip of his foot brushed the asphalt. Sirens were screaming from behind them, the sound carrying for miles in the early morning heat of the Senora desert. 

Ray could feel the muscles in Ryan’s back tensing as he maneuvered the bike through the baren back roads, cutting through trailer parks and dusty alleyways. Ray bit his lip to stop the stream of _fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck_ that had been falling out his mouth for the last twenty minutes. He tightened his grip around Ryan’s waist with one hand and turned around in the seat enough to start shooting at the cops behind them. Even terrified at 120 miles per hour Ray was a dead shot – he lit up the tires on the closest car, sending it reeling into another. Two more swerved to avoid the crash and kept coming at them, but Ray aimed for the drivers and then they were falling away. 

There more coming from further back, but Ryan seized on the momentary freedom to swerve off the road toward the freeway. Ray buried his face in Ryan’s leather jacket, trying to shield his eyes from the dust that had started billowing around them. Ryan turned them so that they were riding parallel to the freeway, waiting for an opportunity to jump the guard rail. Behind them, the sirens were getting louder. Ray could not see past Ryan’s shoulder, but he felt the ground fall away beneath them and tried very hard not to puke. They met the ground again with a bone-breaking _slam_ , and then Ryan was back to weaving around traffic. 

They sped down an off-ramp before the police could catch up, slowing to a normal pace as they wound through a small town. Ryan pulled into an alley and then cut the engine, Ray all but falling off of the bike behind him. 

“Let’s never do that again,” he said, his breath coming out in short gasps. Ryan stood and watched Ray clutch at his side, his arms shaking violently. 

The sound of a police siren speeding toward them broke through the quiet morning again. Ray looked toward the mouth of the alley and made to pull out his pistol, the action cut short when Ryan slammed him into the wall. They were standing in a recessed doorway, the brick obscuring their view from the street. Ray felt Ryan’s chest rise and fall rapidly as he held him against the door, his head tilted toward the street, listening. The space felt cramped and hot and Ray hated it. He belonged on a rooftop, the enemy in clear view through his scope. Instead, he was crouching slightly, his face pressed up against Ryan, who had his arms outstretched toward the wall, holding them both in. 

The cruiser drove past the alley without stopping and Ray let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Chips of paint from the wall fell into his hair as Ryan let his hands fall, backing away into the alley, still watching the entrance. 

“Buy me dinner first next time,” Ray said. Ryan’s head snapped in his direction, his whole body tensing. Ray waggled finger guns at him. “Jokes,” he said, his voice strained. Ryan relaxed and shook his head. Ray scratched the back of his neck awkwardly and walked toward the opening of the alley, looking for an inconspicuous car to hijack. The police would still be on the lookout for two men on a motorcycle, not to mention the skull mask would have been a dead giveaway. 

A blue sedan was sitting on the curb just outside of the alley, the chipped paint and missing back bumper practically screaming “inconspicuous.” 

“Nice,” Ray whispered. 

Ryan brushed past him, heading to the other side of the street where a man in purple tracksuit was opening the door to an impossibly conspicuous black sports car. 

“Shit,” Ray whispered. 

Ryan was putting the barrel of his gun to the guy’s neck when Ray joined them. The man put his hands in the air immediately, “Aw fuck come on man!” 

Ray pulled out his own gun and moved into the man’s line of sight. “Toss me the keys,” he said, holding his other hand out. The man had a pained look on his face but handed the keys over anyway. Ryan slammed the gun down hard on the side of the guys face, making him crumple to the ground, and then climbed behind the wheel. Ray slid into the passenger seat and handed him the keys. 

Ryan had a penchant for driving way too fucking fast, but this time wasn’t so bad. Ray felt more secure surrounded by the metal and glass and laughed as Ryan pushed the car faster and faster. 

The sun was fully in the sky now and Ray felt the warmth of the day settle over his skin as he relaxed into the leather seat. Ryan moved around corners and between cars like he was born to do it, completely at ease despite the fact that at that speed they were never more than several seconds from death. 

“What is it with you and speeding?” Ray asked. 

Ryan did not look away from the road, for which Ray was incredibly grateful. 

Ray wasn’t sure why he kept asking Ryan questions. He was just so achingly curious. 

The desert turned into trees and the trees turned into buildings. Ryan slowed down to a more reasonable pace as they neared downtown, presumably to avoid another chase. Ray was still smiling, unconcerned with where they might going. His head felt a little like it was floating. It was a familiar feeling and he wasn’t sure whether it was good or not, but right now he just didn’t want the car to stop. 

Ryan kept to the outer rim of the city and headed toward the beach, apparently unconcerned with returning to the penthouse. 

Ray’s phone chimed – “Geoff: Where the fuck are you two??” He groaned. Right. They were supposed to check in. “Shaking off the popo,” he responded. “Back soon.” 

They were driving parallel to the beach now, water reflecting the perfectly blue sky.

His phone chimed again – “Geoff: Get back here NOW.”

Ray snorted. “Dad’s mad,” he said to Ryan, who glanced at him and then back to the road. Very suddenly, he slammed on the brake and turned the steering wheel all the way to the left, forcing the car into a 180. When they were facing toward downtown he took off again. Ray was clutching his seat, knuckles white, his phone on the floor. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Ryan!” He yelled. Ryan was laughing silently, his shoulders shaking with mirth. 

\---

Geoff was yelling before they even walked through the door. “It was a smash and grab! Fucking Gavin could have been back before you two! This is the second Goddamn fucking time you’ve done this, where the hell did you even go?” Geoff was purple in the face, his hands gesticulating wildly. 

Ryan was standing there, impassive, his hands in his pockets, taking it. Ray was ducking slightly. “There were like a thousand cops on our ass, we had to drive up to Senora to shake them,” he answered, his voice small. He had his back up against Ryan, who felt solid despite Geoff’s onslaught. 

“Why the hell were there so many fucking cops, it was a _gas station_.”

“Uh.” Ray glanced back at Ryan, who was still looking right at Geoff as far as anyone could tell. “He uh. He kinda blew up the gas station.”

Geoff looked like he was going to explode. Instead, he closed his eyes and held his face in his hands. “How much money did you get?” he asked through his fingers.

Ray closed his eyes and murmured inaudibly, “Three hundred dollars.”

Geoff froze. Beat. Beat. “What.”

Ray wished more than ever that Ryan would fucking say something, but he didn’t. Ray repeated himself, louder, “Three hundred dollars. We got three hundred dollars. Apparently they changed the cash-out schedule.” 

Geoff did not remove his hands from his face. The rest of the crew had stopped what they were doing to watch. Gavin looked absolutely dumbfounded, Michael a little amused. Jack had his arms crossed and his brow furrowed. 

“Three hundred dollars,” Geoff repeated. He dropped his hands to his sides suddenly and turned into the kitchen, taking an unopened bottle of whiskey from a cupboard. He walked wordlessly to his room, opening the bottle as he went. 

“On that note,” Ray said brightly, and wandered off toward his own room. 

\---

The floating feeling from the drive had worn off, leaving Ray feeling strung out and dizzy. He had closed all of the curtains in his room, leaving the space dark and a little claustrophobic. The only light came from the TV, the color of the carnage in his game making the room a little more red than it should have been. 

Someone knocked, heavy and contained, and Ray was sure it was Geoff coming to lecture him more until he called, “Come in,” and Ryan walked through the door. He closed the door behind him and then stood awkwardly in front of it, looking around the room through his mask. 

“Oh, hey,” Ray said, unpausing his game. “I thought you were Geoff.” 

Ryan moved further into the room so he could look at the TV. Ray nodded to the empty spot on the bed next to him. “Sit down, dude, you’re being weird.” He stood still for another minute, then moved next to Ray, kicking off his boots and falling onto the bed. 

“You want a turn?” Ray asked, not expecting or getting an answer. 

Ryan watched him play for several minutes, leaning back comfortably on the headboard. Ray felt the knot in his stomach let up a little bit as he shot virtual soldiers in the head. “Three-sixty no scope!” he yelled as his character spun in the air and landed a shot. He glanced at Ryan reflexively and found that the other man had turned his head to look at him, still leaning back. 

Ray turned back to his game. “I’m starting to wonder if I’m making you up.” He cast a quick look at Ryan, who was still staring at him. “Maybe you’re, like, this really complicated hallucination I’ve been having for two weeks,” he continued. “And I’m actually laying in a hospital bed somewhere with a bunch of tubes in all my orifices, and you’re the thing my brain invented to keep me interested in living.”

“Game over” flashed on the screen in bloody red letters and Ray set the controller down on the bed, stretching his arms over his head. Ryan looked back toward the TV quickly. 

“But really, you gotta give me _something_ ,” Ray insisted. Ryan turned back toward him and in the dying light Ray noticed that his eyes were blue behind the mask. He sighed. “Whatever man. Wanna watch a movie?” In lieu of a response Ryan held out his hand for the controller, using it to navigate to a gory slasher film. Ray snorted, “I don’t think it’s physically possible for a human being to be less surprised than I am right now.”

The bed creaked slightly as Ryan pulled of his leather jacket and then slunk lower on the mattress. 

The title popped on screen, “Is this the one with the chainsaw arm? Ouch!” Ryan shoved Ray’s shoulder, eyes still on the screen. “Am I not allowed to talk during the movie? Ow!” Ray shut up and let the movie play, occasionally glancing at Ryan, trying to spot a reaction and failing. 

Once the slasher film ended they moved onto a grindhouse flik, and then an action film with more explosions than plot. They both fell lower into the bed at the same pace as the sun setting outside, making their way through movies until they landed on a romcom somewhere around 3 am. “I don’t get why everyone thinks Ryan Gosling is attractive,” Ray’s voice was muffled by the pillow where his face was half-buried. Ryan didn’t punch him this time. “Ryan Reynolds is where it’s at,” he added. A few moments later he was snoring. 

When Ray woke up the next morning, the TV was back at the menu selection screen and Ryan was asleep on his stomach, his face buried in a pillow and his mask sitting on the nightstand. Ray debated over whether or not to hide it, but figured there was probably no where he could hide the mask that would be better than wherever Ryan would end up hiding his body. Still, as far as he knew no one had ever seen the guys face, and he was itching to know. 

But then Ryan stirred and Ray sunk back onto the bed, his heart hammering slightly. Ryan’s hand moved to his face, rubbing at his eyes, and then he froze, realizing he wasn’t alone.

“Morning, sunshine,” Ray murmured. “You’re so cute when you’re asleep, like a little psychotic angel.”

Ryan pulled his mask on, careful not to let Ray see him, and then stood up and stretched. He looked at Ray for moment and then unceremoniously walked out of the room. 

“Fuckin nice one, Ray,” Ray said to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk man cut me some slack


	5. V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do I have to add a summary? Whatever. There's a meeting.

The sun was setting behind heavy clouds over Los Santos, leaving the air chilly and thin. Ray hugged Ryan’s leather jacket closer to himself. It was warmer than he had expected it to be, and it smelled faintly of gasoline and blood. Ray found it surprisingly comforting as he held his scope to his eye, watching the people in the building across the street go about their lives. He had his whole sniper rifle with him this time, the butt resting on his shoulder, the barrel sitting on the safety barrier between his legs. 

He looked up when Ryan arrived, pulling the cigarette out of his mouth so he could smile more easily. “Hey gorgeous, you come here often?” Ryan did not respond. He was standing with his arms crossed, his t-shirt trying its damnedest to keep his torso contained. It always caught Ray off guard how built Ryan was. 

Ray turned back to his rifle, replacing the cigarette in his mouth. The metal back of the chair was starting to dig into his shoulders so he slumped down further, the neck of the jacket scrunching up under his ears. Ryan pulled on the sleeve forcefully but Ray shrugged him off. He dragged the cigarette out of his mouth again, condescension dripping from his voice, “Use your words,” he said. 

Every muscle in Ryan’s body tensed and for a second Ray was absolutely sure he was going to hit him. Instead, Ryan lifted Ray out of the chair and slammed him against the air vent, knocking both of the chairs out of the way. The jacket was enormous on Ray’s slight frame and drooped off his shoulders as Ryan held him, Ray clutching at his arms to keep his balance.

Ryan was breathing very hard and leaning his face in so that Ray’s nose was almost touching the mask. “Fuck I’m sorry it was a joke I didn’t mean it,” Ray spoke quickly, his eyes wide and his heart hammering. His phone chimed in his pocket. 

Ray felt his feet hit solid concrete again when Ryan dropped him, but the bigger man didn’t back away. Ray reached into his pocket for his phone, unable to avoid brushing against Ryan as he did so due to the proximity. The message read, “Get back here, we found Caleb.” 

The walk back into the penthouse was quiet and tense. Ray had shrugged the jacket off and handed it back to Ryan without saying anything. 

Geoff was pacing and forth in front of the bar, fingers twirling thoughtfully through his mustache. He paused briefly when Ray and Ryan entered. “That little fucker’s been hiding out with Broadcast,” he said. Broadcast was a group dedicated to the dissemination of sensitive information. For a price, of course. “Right now they’re working out of an office in Vinewood.” 

Jack spoke up from the couch, where he was sitting with his hands on his lap, fingers pushed together. “I’ve talked to their boss and he’s willing to give us the blueprints to Maze Bank if we let Caleb walk.” 

“Are we going for it?” Ray asked, looking to Geoff for an answer. 

Geoff stopped pacing and placed his hands in his pockets, his expression pained but thoughtful. “Maybe,” he said. “We’ve scheduled a meeting in an hour to discuss negotiations. The problem is, Michael and Gavin are busy, so I’ll need you two at the meeting.” 

It was quiet in the room for a minute while Jack and Geoff waited for Ray to respond. “Uh,” he said, finally. “I’m not really good at the whole, face-to-face thing.” 

Geoff sighed, nodding his head. “I know, but we need at least four people and they set the meeting underground so there’s nowhere for you to snipe from.” 

Ray dropped his head, groaning. “Fine, yeah, okay.”

\---

They were driving to a below-ground carpark in the Vinewood district, the car bristling with tension. Night had fallen over Los Santos and it had started to rain, the little droplets of water catching streetlights as they drove. Ray concentrated on watching a drop slide slowly down the window, trying not to remember the way the little beads of blood had crawled down Ryan’s neck in the warehouse. 

Broadcast was already there when they arrived, Caleb standing stick-thin and proud in the middle of the five men. His sandy hair was falling slightly in his eyes and his thin lips were worked into a smug smile. Ray glanced at Geoff, who looked angry and a little bit hurt. Caleb had been one of his first recruits, until he had decided that there was more money in freelance accounting. 

Letting him leave had been a mistake, and Geoff knew it, but he couldn’t bring himself to kill the kid. 

“So you’ve shacked up with these asshole, huh?” Geoff spit the question at him, for once not trying to hide his contempt. 

Caleb smiled wider and shrugged his shoulders, “What can I say, they pay well.” 

The man standing next to Caleb walked toward Geoff, his hand outstretched. He had a large gun strapped to his back and several days’ worth of black stubble on his face. He, like the rest of the group, was wearing all-black. “It’s very nice to finally meet you in person, Kingpin, you can call me Bradley,” he said. Ray could detect the hint of disdain buried in his tone, and judging by the look on Geoff’s face it hadn’t gotten past him either. 

But then Bradley’s eyes shifted past Geoff to the Vagabond, still standing next to the car with his hands folded neatly in front of him. Bradley raised his eyebrows, tensing almost imperceptibly. “The Vagabond?” he said, more a question than a statement. “Since when did he start rolling with Fake AH?” 

The atmosphere around the two groups was thickening. Geoff smiled, a wild, deranged smile. “Picked him up a few weeks ago. He’s been a real valuable addition to the team.” Broadcast had started to shift a little on their feet, clutching their guns a little tighter. Caleb was still smiling. 

Jack cleared his throat, drawing all eyes back to him. “So. You want to keep Caleb.” 

Bradley smiled and nodded, “Sure do. Kid’s got good instincts.” 

Geoff snorted and Bradley’s face snapped toward him. “They can’t be that good if he thought crossing me was a brilliant idea.” 

“I could say the same for you,” Caleb was speaking now, moving over to Geoff and standing with his nose up and his arms crossed. “Why the hell would you keep using a safe house I knew about after I left?” Geoff bristled, clearly about to start chewing him up, but Ray interrupted before he could. 

“Dude, back off, you’re the one who up and abandoned us.” He was a little bit angry, but mostly he just didn’t want a fight to break out, as it no doubt would once Geoff got going. Caleb marched over to him, catching Ray a little off-guard, until they were face to face. He had his gun out, digging into Ray’s stomach. 

He hissed, “Shut the fuck up, Ray, you have no idea-” Before Ray had a chance to react, Ryan was between them, holding Caleb by the throat and backing him toward the rest of Broadcast. Everyone realized a few moments too late that there was a knife in his hand. The Vagabond jabbed into Caleb’s neck several times in quick succession, blood pouring out and over the Vagabond’s hands, a bright crimson red against Caleb’s sickly white skin. 

All at once it dawned on Geoff why Anatoly had handed him the Vagabond and his stomach turned into knots. Half a second later he remembered why he had hired Ray, as every member of Broadcast fell to the ground, the guns they had pulled falling with a clang next to them. Two of them hadn’t even gotten a chance to fire. 

Ray watched Caleb’s body fall onto the cold concrete and knew that he should had felt revulsion, but he didn’t. He was frozen in place, little bit relieved and whole lot terrified. Underneath that was something else, something he couldn’t name or describe. The Vagabond, or Ryan, or whatever the thing was, walked over to him and put its hands on his face. The blood was warm and smelled like metal and death, and Ray felt like he was going to be sick until he felt the mask lean against his forehead. 

Jack was inspecting the bodies, looking for information or maybe cash, but Geoff was just standing in front of the car, staring blankly at the pile of people on the ground. He ran his fingers through his hair and closed his eyes. “We gotta get out of here, someone definitely heard that.” 

Ray pulled away and got into the car, only vaguely registering the other bodies climbing in after him. 

The drive back felt twice as long as the drive there. The rain on the window shattered the city outside into a web of light and vague shapes. He rested his head against the cold glass, feeling all of the heat drain out of his body where they connected. 

When they got back to the penthouse, Ray went straight for the roof. His hoodie clung to his skin, the hood doing very little to keep him dry after a few minutes in the downpour. He almost didn’t hear the boots crunching along in the gravel, the sound buried under the hum of the torrent. 

Ray pulled his tenth cigarette in twenty minutes out of his mouth, keeping it close so the rain wouldn’t ruin it. A leather jacket fell over his shoulders and he felt more than he saw the figure sit down next to him. 

He waited until he stopped shivering before try to speak. “Thanks.” It came out croaky and strained, like he had been crying even though he hadn’t. Ryan leaned against him slightly and Ray noticed that all of the hairs on the man’s arms were standing on end. The blood was gone from his hands, and Ray remembered that he hadn’t wiped off his face. “I should probably take a shower,” he said. Ryan nodded and took the cigarette from Ray’s hand, lifting his mask just enough to put it in his mouth. 

It was hard to see through the layer of water on his glasses, but Ray watched anyway. Ryan’s face was very close to his, close enough that he could feel the heat coming off of it. A small, confused part of him wanted to lean in further, but instead he shrugged off Ryan’s jacket and handed it back. He left Ryan sitting on the roof, his heart beating harder than it had any right to. 

Geoff was sitting in an armchair with most of the lights off when Ray walked through the front door, a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the table next to him. He looked at Ray, standing in the entry way soaking wet and with smears of blood still on his face, and sighed. “The only thing stopping him from murdering all of us in our sleep is two joy rides and a sleepover,” he said. 

Ray shrugged. “He’s not so bad.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Geoff leaned forward in the chair, head in his hands. “Listen, just… Don’t piss him off.”

Ray balked, shivering, wishing he knew what was going on. “Whatever. I’m going to take a shower. Don’t piss on the couch or anything.”

Geoff listened to his footsteps fade down the hallway and prayed silently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *throws confetti in the air*


	6. VI

“Remember when you thought this was a good idea?” 

Geoff huffed, crouched behind a metal trash bin. “Listen asshole-” he stopped when a body thunked on the ground next to him, a bullet hole through his temple.

“You’re welcome,” Ray said. 

“Whatever,” Geoff hissed back. Heat and scraps of metal flew through the air, propelled by the force of a grenade going off somewhere to Geoff’s left. “Vagabond!” Geoff yelled into his mic. “Stop blowing shit up!” His voice cracked a little, and he groaned in frustration when he was met with silence. 

“You’re clear, Geoff,” Ray said, adjusting the scope of his rifle to look for Ryan. Geoff leapt out from behind the trashcan, still crouched low. He spotted Jack slumped behind a car, clutching at a bloody tear on his shoulder. 

The building across from them was burning, the smoke obscuring the identities of the people moving around it. Ray counted five silhouettes, two he knew to be Michael and Ryan. They had their backs pressed up against a wall, Ryan’s mask the only clear indicator that it was them. Ray kept his aim on the spot just to their right beyond the wall, where a third person, unseen by them, was approaching. Ray waited until he could make out the vague impression of a beard on the man’s face and then shot him between the eyes. 

“Fuck,” Michael winced as the bullet blew past him, his voice carrying through their earpieces. “Nice one, Ray.” 

He and Ryan ducked around the wall, looking for Gavin. “Vav, check in,” Ray spoke calmly into his mic, trying to suppress the panic that had started to well up at the bottom of his stomach. “Vav, are you okay?” Gavin did not respond. “Fuck,” Ray breathed into the mic. “Alright guys, there’s two more dudes circling around the back, I don’t have a clear shot from here.”

“Gotcha,” Michael responded, and headed around the building, Ryan close behind him. 

Sirens flared up in the distance. “Popos coming,” Ray said, though he was sure they must already know. Geoff was helping Jack into a car that hadn’t sustained too much damage in the firefight, glancing around with a worried look on his face. 

The sound of shots reverberated through the streets, followed by “Found Gavin,” and then Michael and Ryan ran back into Ray’s view, Gavin slung loosely over Ryan’s shoulder, blood pouring down his face. 

Michael climbed into the backseat of the car, dragging Gavin in after him. Ryan slammed the door shut and started running toward the alley where Ray was perched. “Get in the fucking car, I’ll be fine!” Ray yelled, but Ryan didn’t turn around. 

Geoff’s frantic voice pounded through his earpiece as the car pealed out of the lot and into the street, “We have to go, you’ll have to get yourselves back, don’t die.” 

Ray pulled his ear piece out and collapsed his rifle in half, just enough to fit it into his backpack, and then ran down the steps of the fire escape he had been sitting in. Ryan was waiting for him, the engine of a stolen motorcycle roaring between his legs, and Ray had only barely jumped on the back when suddenly they were moving.

The street was mostly clear, the bullets and the fire had persuaded most drivers to take a detour. Ryan was pushing the bike as fast as it would go, but the squad cars were catching up quickly, the red and blue flashing lights a little disorienting. Ray pulled himself closer to Ryan, his chest pushed hard against the other man’s back as he clung on for dear life while turning in his seat to shoot at the cops. 

Three of his first five shots met their mark and two of the cruisers fell away as they met real traffic again. The bike whipped between cars, collecting black and yellow and green paint on the pedals and handlebars. 

Ray kept shooting until his clip clicked empty and then he reached into Ryan’s jacket pocket and pulled out a grenade. The explosion sent most of the rest of the cruisers flying, careening into one another as their engines burned. Ryan sped around a few more turns, ducked between a few more alleyways, and then they were alone. 

They were only a few blocks from the penthouse now, but Ryan slowed a little and kept away from the main streets until they pulled into the garage. Ray did not get up immediately. He was shivering a little and breathing hard, his head resting between Ryan’s shoulder blades. A breathy laugh escaped his lips, “We’ve gotta stop doing that.” Ray pulled himself off the bike, realizing as he did so that the front of his shirt was covered in blood. “Dude shit you’re hurt!” There was a long gash on Ryan’s back, blood seeping slowly through his jacket. 

He leaned slightly on Ray as they rode the elevator to the penthouse. Gavin was lying on the kitchen table when they entered, the rest of the crew and a man Ray knew to be a nurse standing around him. The nurse was applying bandages to Gavin’s head, the skin there badly bruised and bleeding. 

Geoff looked up them when he heard the door open and relief washed over his face. “Thank Christ,” he mumbled. He nodded down at Gavin, “he took a blow to the head but he’ll be fine,” he nodded toward Jack, sitting on a chair with a towel pressed to his shoulder “he got grazed by a bullet but nothing serious.” His eyes went wide when he noticed all the blood on Ray’s shirt. “Are you two okay?” 

Ray started to say something but Ryan bumped his shoulder and nodded at Geoff, then started walking towards Ray’s room. Geoff was too distracted to notice, and went back to clutching at Gavin’s hand, his expression pained. 

The room was dark and cold, the curtains still drawn and the AC up all the way. Ryan slipped out of his jacket and t-shirt, wincing and trying not to move his arm, and then laid down face first on Ray’s bed. Ray turned on a lamp and pulled an emergency first aid kit out of his backpack. 

“You should really let the nurse look at it,” Ray insisted. Ryan shook his head, his back convulsing a little from the movement. Despite Ray’s protestations, the wound wasn’t bad. The leather jacket had taken the brunt of whatever debris had cut him, leaving a superficial slice from the middle of Ryan’s left shoulder blade down to the base of his ribs. It would probably need stiches, but that was not a part of Ray’s job description. 

He wiped the blood clear with a wet towel and then poured most of a bottle of hydrogen peroxide on the wound. The muscles in Ryan’s back tensed and Ray placed a hand on his uninjured shoulder. “Don’t be a baby,” he said. “It’s not even that bad.” Ryan relaxed as Ray began to tape bandages around it, then let his hands trace idly along his spine. 

Ryan’s back was already covered in scars. Most of them were faint, only noticeable if you really looked, but there was one near his hip that was twisted and pink, another below his ribs. “I can’t decide if you used to be normal or not.” Ray was staring at the place on Ryan’s neck where his hair started. “Like, a part of me totally thinks you used to go see movies and eat spaghetti and walk around without a mask on.” Ray pulled his sweater off and shifted so that he was lying next to Ryan, facing the ceiling. “But then this other part of me is totally convinced that you’ve always been, like, a super creepy mute weirdo with a mask.”

The bed creaked next to Ray and he felt Ryan put his arm across his still-wet stomach. When he looked over, Ryan had the mask halfway up his face, so that Ray could see his mouth and his jaw and the tip of his nose and his stubble. He leaned his face against Ray’s shoulder, hard, and bit very lightly at Ray’s skin through his t-shirt. Ryan’s breath was hot and shallow and Ray felt his chest compressing until he couldn’t breathe. 

Someone pounded on the door and Ray jolted back to life, leaving Ryan to pull his mask back on all the way while he opened the door. Geoff was standing outside it, looking disheveled and worried. “Group meeting,” he said simply, and walked back toward the living room. Ray looked back at Ryan, who was waiting to follow him, still shirtless. 

Everyone else was already gathered around the couch, Michael leaning against a wall and fidgeting. Gavin was still unconscious on the table, a pillow under his head. The nurse had moved on to wrapping a bandage around Jack’s shoulder as Jack shook his head slowly. 

“That was way too fucking close,” he said. 

Geoff combed his fingers through his hair. “If you have any better ideas about how to deal with this, I’m fucking open for suggestions.” 

Michael clenched and unclenched his fists, refusing to look at anyone. “I still can’t fucking believe you guys shot the fucking _boss of Broadcast_. What the fuck were you thinking?” Geoff shot him a look, but he kept going. “I mean, were you _trying_ to start a fucking gang war? Because I can’t imagine what else-” 

“Enough,” Geoff cut him off. “Shit happens, we rolled with it, quit fucking bitching. If you’re gonna keep being pissy you can leave.” Michael glared back at him but didn’t move. 

Ray glanced up at Ryan. He seemed relaxed, utterly unaffected by the conversation, his shoulders slouched and his hands in his pockets. 

Jack spoke up, his voice cutting through the tension that had built in the room. “I think at this point we can agree to avoid face-to-face meetings for the time being.” Geoff relaxed and turned away from Michael. 

“At least until we get this sorted out. No one’s going to be happy that we took out half of Broadcast.” 

Michael snorted. “We wouldn’t be in this fucking mess if that fucking psycho hadn’t gone batshit crazy in the middle of a negotiation.” Ray looked at Ryan, ready to grab him to stop him from charging at Michael, but he just stood there, head tilted curiously to the side. “Why the fuck is he even here? All he does is blow shit up and-” Michael was once again cut short, this time by Geoff punching him square in the face. 

“Listen you little fuck, I get that you’re pretty fucked up about Gavin right now but you need to watch your fucking mouth,” Geoff was holding Michael by the collar of his shirt, and Michael looked ready to hit him back but thought better of it. Not even Michael was dumb enough to start a fistfight with Geoff. “Bitching isn’t gonna fix this, and in case you hadn’t noticed the Vagabond has saved your ass more times than I can count in the last three weeks so maybe you should consider apologizing.”

Michael pushed Geoff’s hand away and stormed out of the penthouse, slamming the door behind him. 

Geoff carded his fingers through his hair again and started walking towards his room. “Whatever, do whatever the fuck you want, just don’t blow up anything important.”

The nurse paused to look around the room awkwardly, then nodded at Ryan. “You need me to look at your shoulder?” Ryan tensed up, his chest puffing out slightly as he did so. 

Ray answered for him, “Yeah, I think he probably needs stitches.” Ryan looked down at Ray, who felt that he must have been glowering under the mask. The nurse directed Ryan to a kitchen chair and gave him a few pain killed, then began pealing Ray’s bandages off. He cast Ray a “really?” sort of look and Ray shrugged. 

Ten minutes later, the nurse was smoothing a final piece of medical tape across Ryan’s back. “Don’t move your arm around too much or you’ll pull it open, but you probably already know that.” Ryan looked at him the way a lion might look at a mouse until Ray cleared his throat. 

He walked back to Ray as Jack shook the nurse’s hand and walked him to the door. They moved back to Ray’s room, Ryan leaning heavily on Ray’s much smaller shoulder. There was heat falling off of his body in waves, his fingers twisting around the hem of Ray’s shirt. 

“Alright dude,” Ray said. “I think maybe the drugs are starting to get to you.” Ryan collapsed onto the bed, his hands clutching lazily at the mask on his face. 

Ray sat down next to him and turned on his Xbox. A few minutes into his second match he felt Ryan’s hand brush against his leg, his fingers coming to rest between Ray’s thighs, and then Ryan was still again, unconscious or high or too deranged to care. He was curled up next to Ray, his face under the mask resting against Ray’s hip. 

In the back of his mind Ray knew that it was weird, he knew that Ryan was dangerous and unpredictable and maybe a little unhinged. But he let his fingers fall to Ryan’s neck anyway, let them comb through the fringes of Ryan’s hair that were falling out the back of the mask. He leaned his head against the bed frame and pretended that it was normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be the last update for a little while. I'm going camping for spring break so I won't be able to get online very much. I'll definitely have one up by next week though.


	7. VII

A hush fell over Los Santos. 

Days turned into weeks, creaking along slowly in uncomfortable silence and tension. 

No one tried to hit Fake AH, and Geoff worried. 

Gavin dragged Michael back to the penthouse, who apologized with a scowl through his drunken stupor. 

Ray learned to read Ryan through the tilt of his head, the shape of his shoulders. He could hear a response in the long pauses between the tapping of Ryan’s fingers or the time he took to draw on a cigarette. 

He found Geoff in the kitchen one morning, drowning a hangover in black coffee, another sleepless night hanging over his head. Ray wasn’t much better. 

“How you holding up?” Geoff’s voice was strained and a little slurred. 

Ray pulled a half-gallon of orange juice out of the refrigerator and poured it into glass. “I’m fine. Are you?” 

Geoff grunted, taking another long drink from his “World’s Best Boss” coffee mug. “Can’t really complain. How’s the Vagabond?” He asked the question casually, the way you might ask about the weather, but the line that appeared on Geoff’s brow when he asked gave him away. 

“Ryan,” Ray said without looking up from his orange juice. 

“What?”

“His name is Ryan. Did you really not know that?” Ray finally looked at Geoff, who had a surprised look on his face. 

“He never really struck me as a Ryan.”

Ray nodded slowly and leaned against the counter, concentrating on his orange juice rather than how awkward this whole situation was. He wondered vaguely when it had become awkward to talk to Geoff. 

Geoff cleared his throat and set his coffee down, the sound louder than normal in the stillness of the morning. “Listen,” he began, his eyes locked on the handle of his mug where his fingers were tracing a circle around the edge. He cleared his throat again. “I’m really glad that you two are such good friends-” Ray stiffened, his glass of orange juice frozen halfway to his lips. “But… He’s dangerous.” 

“You’re the one who fucking hired him, Geoff.”

Geoff was squirming, still pointedly avoiding eye contact. “I know but… He follows you around like a fucking puppy, you know that, right?”

“Yeah, because I’m the only person who _talks to him_ ,” Ray was fuming, his fist clenched tightly around his glass, now sitting on the counter. 

“It’s not just that,” Geoff turned to look at Ray finally, but then glanced away again almost immediately. “It’s like he’s fixated on you. And I’m worried.”

“About what? That he’ll hurt me?” 

“No.”

“Then what?!”

“That he’ll hurt someone else.” Geoff looked Ray square in the face, whose expression was blank. 

Ray wanted to argue. Of course he wouldn’t, he was part of the team, he knew not to attack his own men. But he couldn’t. 

The hush grew a little bit deeper. 

Ray sat on the edge of his bed, his fingers jabbing aggressively at the buttons on his Xbox controller as he poured all of his anger into the skulls of fake men. He wasn’t even sure why he was angry. His phone chimed somewhere in the room and he ignored it, until it chimed three more times. He tossed the controller onto his bed a lot harder than necessary and found his phone. 

Wanna go for a ride?

It’s too quiet here, I’m bored. 

Let’s go camping. 

Meet me out front. 

They were from Ryan’s burner phone and Ray felt his chest expand like it was filling with helium. The bag be packed was woefully inadequate, most of the space taken up by his sniper rifle and the first aid kit. He felt rushed and full of adrenaline, the feeling pulling him toward the door. 

Ryan was sitting in the driver’s seat of an undoubtedly stolen silver Adder. His restless fidgeting made the even purring of the car’s engine feel wrong. Before Ray had a chance to pull his seatbelt on Ryan was already pealing into the street, the speed making the car roar in a way that was more in tune with the feeling that had settled in the pit of Ray’s stomach. 

They followed the highway out of downtown Los Santos and then out of the reaches of the city, the high hum of the car mixing with the wind as the sun slowly sank below the horizon. 

They kept driving. 

Ray relaxed into his seat and watched hills roll past the window, the landscape crumbling and rising around them as they ran from Los Santos. Ryan was more relaxed than Ray had ever seen him, one hand resting lazily near the gear shift, the other caressing the steering wheel. Ray felt like he was flying. 

The car finally rolled to a stop next to a lake several hours after the sun had already set. Ray had no idea where they were. He sat on the hood of the car, the metal burning hot through his clothes, while Ryan walked to the edge of the water, stooping to pick up stones and skip them across the surface. The cold night air took it’s time sucking the heat out of the engine. 

The two men dwelled in the quiet and watched the stars glitter on the surface of the water. Ray breathed deeply, taking in the silence. It wasn’t as heavy as the silence that had fallen in the penthouse, the same silence that had settled like a threat over Los Santos. It was a cold silence, a silence that did not seem to care whether or not Ray listened to it. 

It did not seem to mind when Ray finally broke through it, his laugh echoing over the lake and dying somewhere in the dark. 

“It is fucking cold.” He looked at Ryan. “Did you even bring a tent?”

Ryan shrugged, throwing another rock into the still rippling water. 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You said we were going camping, how did you not bring a tent?”

Ryan turned around to face Ray, who understood. 

“Right, where would you even get a tent. Now that I think about it, how do you get anything? I mean, it’s not like you can just walk into a store with a skull mask on.” 

Ryan shrugged again, this time a little more pained, and turned back to the water. 

Ray rolled his eyes, hugging himself. The engine had finally started to cool and Ray could feel the chill beginning to creep along his arms. Ryan walked back to the car and settled onto the hood, laying down next to Ray with his hands tucked under his head. 

“Why don’t you take it off?” Ray asked abruptly.

It wasn’t a new question but it hung between them, the silence stretching out farther than Ray normally allowed. Ryan shifted, a little uncomfortable. 

“I mean, it’s just us. It’s not like I’m gonna give away your identity or anything.” It was desperate and pointless and Ray knew it, but the mask felt out of place so far from Los Santos. But then Ryan reached toward his chin, his fingers brushing gently along the end of the mask. Ray felt his heart skip, but then Ryan dropped his hand again and Ray sighed. 

He let himself fall back onto the car, disappointment twisting in his stomach. The hood was cold and he could feel the heat radiating off of Ryan, then he could feel Ryan’s fingers tracing idly on the palm of his hand, the touch like fire against Ray’s cold skin. 

His chest felt like it was collapsing again as Ryan leaned into him, moving so that their bodies were pressed up against each other, and then he fell still. Ray could still feel his hand, brushing along his wrist now. He tried to remind himself to breath but Ryan was so close and he smelled like fire and wilderness and _Ryan_. 

Ray reached over and touched the edge of the mask, tugging on it gently, waiting for Ryan to pull his hand away. When he didn’t, Ray let his fingers slip between the edge of the mask and Ryan’s face, which suddenly felt very hot. 

And then the mask was gone and instead a pair of very cold blue eyes were staring back at him. Ray bit down on his tongue. Ryan had sandy blond hair and rough stubble, his face rigid and scarred. It was not at all what Ray was expecting, though he wasn’t sure what exactly he _had_ been expecting. 

The moment stretched out and neither of them moved. It occurred to Ray that he was shivering, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. He was afraid that if he moved Ryan would disappear behind the mask again, like a startled bird. 

And then a large, hot, calloused hand, wrapped itself around Ray’s waist. 

Fire flooded through his body, pooling near his groin, and he stopped shivering. He could feel their foreheads touching, Ryan’s thumb gently brushing along the skin just above his jeans. 

Ray closed his eyes, trying to relax, trying not to think about how much Ryan was touching him and how much he didn’t want Ryan to stop touching him. The hand on his waist stilled as Ryan shifted slightly, and Ray waited for him to pull away, but instead he leaned in and Ray felt his lips along his cheek, and then his chin, the tip of his nose, and then Ryan was kissing him. 

Ray felt his mouth open, a breath of surprise escaping him, and then he was kissing Ryan back. He pulled his fingers through Ryan’s hair, pulling him closer. He tasted like cigarettes and mint toothpaste and it made Ray gasp again. He kissed along Ray’s neck, biting gently at the soft skin under his ear and Ray melted into it. 

When neither of them could feel their fingers anymore, they moved back into the car, the heater going full blast and the headlights off. At some point Ray fell asleep and when he woke up again the mask was back and the sun was deciding if it wanted to rise or not. They were driving again, the horizon a flat expanse of fields that never seemed to end. 

“Where are we?” Ray asked. Ryan looked toward him briefly then back at the road. 

Ray sat up straighter in his seat, his neck aching from sleeping in the car. “I’ve got to fuckin pee dude.”

Ryan made no sign of having heard him, but Ray had long since stopped being offended by the silences. 

Eventually, a squat gas station lumbered into view and they stopped. The attendant watched Ryan closely as he filled the tank, mask still resolutely covering his face. He spared Ray only a passing glance as the tinkling bell announced his presence. 

“You two together?”

He was still staring out the window, watching Ryan. His face was painted blue by the monitor of the cash register, the bags under his eyes hidden in several layers of freckles. The whole inside of the gas station was covered in porcelain dolls and knickknacks that declared that they were in Idaho. 

It was far too early to bother with questions. Ray pulled snack cakes off the shelves and stacked them onto the counter, then grabbed a diet coke and a bottle of chocolate milk. 

The attendant raked his eyes over the merchandise, glancing at Ray’s hoodie, back toward Ryan, and then back to Ray. “You mind turning out your pockets?” 

Ray groaned. “It’s fucking four a.m. dude, let me live.”

The attendant did not falter. The bell tinkled again as Ryan walked in, his large form making the inside of the gas station feel small and cramped. 

The attendant faltered. “Whatever,” he mumbled under his breath, running the items under the scanner and shoving them into bags. Ray threw Ryan a wry smile, a silent “thanks bud” because it was too early and they were too far from home to bother with robbing the guy. 

They kept driving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still on break so there will be another delay, but hopefully not too long.


	8. VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can skip the first half of this, just jump to the line break.

Officer Kelsey Mills of the Ellis County police department – small, brunette, and the favorite to win the upcoming sheriff election – was having a really bad day. Normally, Catesby, Oklahoma was a quiet town. So little happened in Catesby that it wasn’t even technically a town. Officer Mills had awoken that morning at precisely 3:48 a.m. to the sound of her mousy brown cat retching onto the foot of her bed. Even as consciousness reached threateningly into the crevices of her exhausted mind, the choking whine of a sick animal pulling her toward wakefulness, she kept her eyes clenched tightly shut. 

“ _Not today. No. Not today, motherfuckers,_ ” she mumbled quietly to herself, then, to the cat, “Hey Mr. Snickers, it’s okay. Are you sick again?”

She sat up, her thin brown hair obscuring her view slightly. Mr. Snickers had his back arched, his face drooping dejectedly over an already sizable mess of partially digested cat food. “Awesome,” Officer Mills huffed, her shoulders drooping. 

The drive to the station felt longer than ever despite the lack of traffic (there was never traffic, the whole town had only a few dozen cars). To make matters worse, she would not be going home again until very late that night. The Daffodil Parade would be taking place that evening, and Officer Mills was in charge of security. The parade was always a logistical nightmare, but if she was going to win the election she would need to make sure everything went off without a hitch. 

The annual Daffodil Parade wasn’t so much a parade as it was a block party, but since the entirety of downtown Catesby consisted of only two blocks, it couldn’t really be considered either. On the other hand, it was the only time that anyone who didn’t live in Catesby ever came to Catesby – folks who lived on farms just beyond the not-town line would drive in with their kids to listen to the only local blues band and maybe buy some chickens. 

Ten years ago they had the biggest Daffodil Parade on record: a whopping sixty-three people came (The Carmichael’s, up past the interstate, had their grandkids and some cousins in town for a wedding and they all decided to drop by for a few hours). Officer Mills had only been a deputy at the time. She hoped sincerely that it wouldn’t be like that again this year. 

When she pulled into the police station, a man in a trucker hat and a denim jacket was standing just outside. “Morning Carl,” Officer Mills said as she unlocked the door to the station. “What are you doing here so early?”

“Humph, well, why am I here so early? I tell you, Kel, I tell you,” Carl replied in a southern drawl too thick for someone who had spent their whole life in Oklahoma. “I tell you what, Kel, Marcy’s been at it again, all night, all damn night she was at it.”

Officer Mills sighed heavily, opening the door to the station to invite Carl inside. _Not today_ , Officer Mills thought to herself. _Any day but today_. “I’ll run over and talk to her once I get through the messages from last night.” 

Carl did not look convinced. “Something’s gotta be done about that woman, Kel, I can’t take it, I just can’t take it, I gotta wake up in the mornin’.”

“I’ll issue her a fine for noise pollution, how’s that?” Officer Mills offered, shoving her hands into her pockets. 

Carl squinted at Officer Mills, his bushy mustache scrunching up into his beard as he puckered his lips in thought. “Fine,” he responded. “But I swear Kel, I swear, I’ll burn her shed down if she doesn’t cut it out.” 

“Carl you can’t make threats like that, we’ve talked about this.”

But he was already headed out the door, waving a hand dismissively over his head. 

Marcy and Carl had to be the only true neighbors in all of Oklahoma, and Officer Mills was starting to wonder if Lord Jesus himself hadn’t squeezed them in next to each other just so they could make today a little bit more difficult. 

Out on the street, preparations for the upcoming parade were already under way. Streamers and flags were hanging daintily from the three traffic lights lining the street, and outside of the only bar a small stage was being constructed. Officer Mills waved at the not-townspeople as she drove past on her way to Marcy’s house. Technically, she was supposed to be meeting with the planning committee but she wanted to talk to Marcy before it got too late, since the festivities would certainly keep her busy for the rest of the day. 

Marcy’s house was several miles out of town, nestled at the very edge of a piece of property that consisted primarily of a large, boggy pond. Officer Mills had to pound her fist on the front door several times before the old woman finally answered. “What?” she barked, her voice horse and croaky in a manner quite reminiscent of a toad. She was stooped and wearing a black bathrobe, the fine tendrils of a dark tattoo peaking up her neck. 

“I’m sorry to have to wake you but Carl’s been complaining again,” Officer Mills explained, nodding her head toward the brown house only fifteen yards away. “You need to keep your music down at night, you know how he gets about that.”

The old woman scrunched her nose up and opened her mouth slowly, a sign that let Officer Mills know she would be standing and listening to a defensive tirade for at least another twenty minutes. Instead, the distinctive boom of a large bomb going off a few miles away shook the porch, and the old woman winced, ducking slightly behind her door. Officer Mills turned in the direction of the sound and saw a large plume of smoke ascending from what she knew to be the Harper’s barn, though at this distance the structure wasn’t visible. At that same moment, her cell phone chimed. She answered without looking at the number. “Hello?” she said, already walking toward her cruiser. 

Mr. Harper’s frantic voice resounded in her ear, “Someone just blew up our barn, what the hell, what the hell, I have no idea who they are, _what the hell is happening?_ ” 

Officer Mills took on an authoritative tone, “Now Mr. Harper, you keep your family away from the barn, I’m right by Marcy’s, I’ll be there in a minute, don’t worry.” 

“Please hurry,” Mr. Harper’s voice was shaking slightly. “They have guns.”

Officer Mills was having a really, truly, _terrible_ day. 

\---

“I’m having the best fucking day, man,” Ray shouted over the roar of the burning remains of the barn. “I can’t believe I thought Oklahoma was boring!” 

Ryan was firing a stolen SMG into the side of a utility shed, flames already starting to lick at the tin roof. He was laughing a low, mad laugh, inaudible over the firing of the gun and Ray’s own shouting. This was fun, a lot of fun, well worth the hours they’d spent tucked low between the stalks of corn, waiting to make sure the barn was truly empty. 

Ray did not usually like being in the middle of the action but there, with Ryan, it filled him with a rush of adrenaline. It helped that they had their backs up against an infinite sea of corn and road and sun. 

A police siren managed to barely pierce through the noise. Ray turned toward his partner in crime, his grin so wide it pushed his glasses up slightly. “You wanna bail or have a barbecue?” 

The SMG slowed and Ryan let his shoulders drop slightly, cocking his head as if in thought. 

A cloud of dust was rising behind the cruiser as it spend toward them, like a flag heralding its arrival. Ray watched as it moved closer to them, his fingers curling automatically around the trigger of his rifle. He was excited, bone-deep, getting-laid-for-the-first-time excited, a buzzing excitement that rattled around his head and waist and feet, urging him to run and move and shoot and laugh. 

The cruiser flew into the driveway of the farm, gravel shooting out from below the tires as it came barreling toward them. 

The pair were clearly visible, making no effort at all to find shelter. Ray was waiting for Ryan to make the first move – whatever he wanted, Ray was ready to follow. Ryan braced himself, raising the SMG again and aiming it toward the oncoming car. 

It screeched to an unhappy halt and the officer inside ducked out behind the door, pointing her department issued pistol at the two gunmen. “Stand down!” she yelled, trying desperately to sound in control despite the obviously uncontrollable circumstances. 

Ryan laughed again, hoarse and low and senseless, and this time Ray heard it. It rang through his ears, making his heart pound harder than he ever remembered it pounding before. It was the first real sound Ray had ever heard Ryan make and he never ever wanted to stop hearing it. 

The SMG sent a hail of bullets into the engine of the squad car, making the cop duck her head further behind the door. Ray aimed very carefully at the spot below the door where her feet were sticking out and took a single shot. She screamed as her shoes more or less exploded. 

Ryan stopped firing and inclined his head toward Ray, a silent _nice shot_ , and Ray was smiling wildly. He hadn’t had this much fun in years. Two more cruisers were pulling in now, two different colors – two different counties – and probably the only ones nearby out here in bum-fuck-nowhere Oklahoma. Ryan turned the gun on them next, ending the fight before it even began. There was no danger here, they were invincible, they were _gods_ , and Ray wanted to stay in that place forever – firing satisfying chunks of lead into children-of-the-corn cops, listening to Ryan roar like the lion in his belly was finally waking up, the barn smoldering to ash next to them. It was amazing, it was _heaven_ , and it was even better when Ryan let the SMG fall to the ground and grabbed Ray’s hand instead and then they were running. 

A helicopter had appeared over the farmhouse, arriving in advance of the firetruck and a whole fleet of state police in the distance. The two men flew through the corn field, the stalks obscuring them from the view of the helicopter. Ray was still clutching his rifle with the hand that wasn’t somehow magically attached to Ryan, and he struggled to keep his grip as it caught on stalks and ripped through leaves. 

“The road is straight back,” Ray yelled, slightly out of breath. “The car should still be there.”

The helicopter was hovering to the left of the sweltering barn, apparently more concerned with the fire than the fugitives.

The end of the field rose up like a revelation, the sunlight startling and refreshing all at once. The Adder was waiting a few yards away and the two bolted towards it, hoping to get inside before the helicopter had a chance to change its mind and come looking for them. 

They tore down the mercifully paved road until the smoke was the only part of the farm still visible. Ray drummed his hands on the dashboard, excitement compelling him to keep moving even as Ryan urged the car faster and faster. 

“That was fucking incredible,” he said. “They’re going to be talking about that for years. Nothing can possibly top that.” 

Ryan’s shoulders were shaking with laughter that was silent once more. Ray leaned back in his seat and stared at him, still smiling. 

“You have an amazing laugh,” he said. “You should laugh more often, like maybe all the time.” 

The words were spilling out if him, his mouth moving as his body couldn’t. 

“You should take the mask off too, you are so fucking pretty under the mask.” Ray felt his cheeks burn slightly. _Nice one, Ray_ , he thought. But it was too late, his mouth kept going despite him. “Like, of all the Ryan’s you’re definitely the prettiest. Ten out of ten, would bang.” His eyes were glued to Ryan’s neck, where sweat was beading down from his hair, and now a faint pink blush was creeping up from under his shirt. 

Ray fell silent, still smiling, wondering what face Ryan was making under the mask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Break's over *confetti*


	9. IX

They had looked for shelter as the sun sank lower on the horizon and helicopters began to dot the sky in droves, finally finding it in a barn that was barely holding back the wind. Ray could not shake the itching feeling that was prickling just under his skin, compelling him to move. So he moved in Ryan’s direction, teasing, poking, trying to make him move, too. He told himself that it was funny, that getting Ryan riled up and buzzing was entertaining, _hell, maybe he’ll laugh again_. Mostly, though, he wanted to goad Ryan into touching him again, just a little, just enough keep him going until tomorrow. It had been several days since the incident by the lake and nothing else had happened and it was _killing_ him. 

Even in a place as wide and open as Oklahoma Ryan looked massive next to Ray. He leaned casually against the car, hands in his pockets, and watched Ray twist himself into knots trying to work off the adrenaline. 

“That was so fucking fun, but you really need to work on your aim. It took you way too long to take out those cops,” Ray said, standing a little closer to Ryan than he could reasonably justify. 

Ryan tilted his head, considering. 

Ray forged on, pushing a little bit more. “And that shit with the barn? I mean, not that it wasn’t _fucking awesome_ but that was all the C-4 we had. Do you have any idea what I went through to steal that?” 

Ryan tilted his head the other way. 

“All I’m saying is-” He stopped abruptly, watching Ryan lean his head fall back wearily, the soft expanse of his neck and collarbone suddenly very exposed. Ray took half a step forward until he was only just barely not pressing up against Ryan and then reached for the mask. Ryan let it fall onto the roof of the car, lifting his head again to look at Ray. 

Ray had not forgotten what Ryan looked like. The image was burned into the back of his eyelids, the moment at the lake playing like a movie every time he closed his eyes. He looked a little bit different now, though. It had been a few more days since he’d shaved, and while then he had seemed uncertain and determined, now his eyes were desperate and hungry. 

The room swayed a little and went out of focus as Ryan’s body hit Ray like a wave, pushing both of them back toward the ground. 

Fucking Ryan felt a lot like riding a motorcycle weaving through traffic at 120 miles per hour, except that as Ray closed his eyes and struggled desperately to find purchase he really, _really_ did not want it to stop. 

Ryan’s body was heavy and very hot, his breath coming in short gasps as he rocked into Ray’s ass, the motion jerky and desperate. Ray inhaled sharply, seeing stars behind his eyelids and through the broken slats of the barn roof. 

“Fuck,” he gasped, trying to keep pace with Ryan on top of him. “Ryan, fuck.”

“ _Quiet_ ,” Ryan hissed. His voice was scratchy and wrecked from disuse, quiet enough that Ray could hardly hear it over his own moaning. 

“Holy shit,” he said. Ryan shushed him again and started fucking harder, making Ray gasp loudly. He was having trouble catching his breath, Ryan’s weight on his chest making him feel like he was suffocating. 

Ryan reached his hand between them and wrapped it around Ray’s exposed dick, eliciting another moan. “ _Be quiet or I’ll have to stop_ ,” he whispered. 

Ray whimpered, feeling his body give out as he finished into Ryan’s hand, but Ryan kept going, leaning low over Ray, his breath hot and jagged on Ray’s neck. He was desperate and hungry and Ray could feel it, weeks and months and years of strained silence falling away onto the floor around them. Ryan tensed and shook as he finished, his hands gripping Ray tightly, his breathing heavy. 

It became suddenly very apparent how quiet the world was, like it had stopped just to listen to them for a minute. It made Ray uncomfortable – he missed the constant drum of life in Los Santos. Ryan collapsed next to him, tucking his head into Ray’s neck and closing his eyes, his arm resting heavily across Ray’s chest. 

“GG man,” Ray whispered, trying to make light of the situation without disrupting the silence that had fallen around them. 

Ryan shook his head dolefully without opening his eyes. 

\---

The ride back to Los Santos was uneventful despite the enormous manhunt that had been issued for them. Los Santos loomed into view much faster than expected, the tall buildings breaking the sky into pieces. Ray’s ass was still sore. 

“How pissed do you think Geoff is gonna be?” Ray looked to Ryan, who had fallen back into sullen silence behind the mask. 

It was a mystery and it was fucking frustrating, the way that Ryan would let himself fall open at Ray’s feet and then close up again a second later. If anything, he was more distant than usual, his body language incomprehensible. 

Ray felt a small knot of anxiety swirl around his stomach at the prospect of getting chewed out for disappearing. In fact, Ray thought, Geoff might not even want him back. 

The knot loosened a little. 

Ryan rolled to a stop in front of Geoff’s apartment building and turned the car off. Ray waited. If there was one thing he absolutely did not want to do it was walk into that building without Ryan. But Ryan made no move to get out of the car. Instead he pulled out a cigarette for the first time since they’d left and lit it. 

Ray breathed in the smoke, letting it fill his lungs and his head. When the cigarette finally burned down to a nub, Ryan stepped out of the car. 

Geoff was waiting in the lobby. 

_We got lost on the way home._

_I tried to call but my phone died._

_Ryan wanted me to help him find his estranged sister._

_I needed a break…_

It all died before it even got to his throat. 

“Hey, Geoff,” Ray managed. 

Geoff somehow did not look angry. His arms were crossed, the muscles bulging slightly, distorting his tattoos. He was leaning again a decorative pillar, his old rock band t-shirt and dirty vans contrasting violently with the elegant lobby. 

For all of that, he fit in considerably better than Ray or Ryan, whose clothes were torn and dirty and, in Ryan’s case, a little bloody. Ray hugged his backpack tightly and waited, but Ryan walked straight past them to the elevator. The ding of the doors closing echoed through the mostly empty room. 

Ray stared at his feet, feeling a little bit sorry but a little bit more impatient. 

After a few minutes, Geoff broke the silence. “Nice to see you again.”

Ray did not respond. 

“Did you have fun on your trip?” He asked casually, evenly, a courtesy to the doorman standing awkwardly on the other side of the room. 

“We went to Oklahoma,” Ray answered. 

“I see.”

“Listen, just get it over with, okay? I’ve had a long week, I just want to go take a nap in a real bed.”

Geoff’s eyes flashed. “Oh. I see. _You’ve_ had a long week. I can’t even imagine how hard it must have been drinking fucking margaritas and sucking each other’s dicks.” He was still speaking slowly, getting quieter as he went on in order to keep himself from shouting. Ray winced a little. “Now _my_ week has just been a breeze, a real treat, practically a vacation.”

“Maybe we should go upstairs.”

“No, I really think we should stay down here,” Geoff uncrossed his arms and took a step toward Ray. “Because honestly Ray, the only thing stopping me from fucking killing you right now is Javier over there.” 

The doorman, who had been staring resolutely at the glass double doors, now cast the pair a frightened glance and shifted uncomfortably. 

Annoyance bubbled in Ray’s throat but he bit his tongue – arguing would make it worse. 

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Geoff continued. His voice was getting louder again. “How could you possibly think that it was a good idea to run off to who-the-fuck-knows-where without your phone, without telling me, without telling _anyone_ , after everything that’s happened?”

“It wasn’t my idea!” Ray insisted. 

“You were gone for almost two fucking weeks! You could have called!” Geoff was shouting now, his face turning a deep maroon. “Jesus fucking Christ, Ray! I thought you were dead!” 

That stung. The part of Ray that was sorry winced again and tried to look ashamed, but the bigger part of him that wasn’t shoved past Geoff and toward the stairwell. “It’s nice to see you, too,” he hissed. 

Geoff grabbed his arm and dragged him back. “You have absolutely no fucking clue what happened while you were gone.” He wasn’t shouting anymore. Ray looked him straight in the face for the first time and realized that he looked tired, even old. “We took a hit. Hard.”

Ray’s heart thumped painfully against his ribs. He opened his mouth, _who died_ , but he couldn’t say it. 

“We needed you here. That’s how a crew works, you rely on each other and you have each other’s backs, and you weren’t fucking there when we needed you.”

“And Ryan?” Ray asked defensively. It didn’t matter and he knew it, but he wanted Geoff to stop looking at him like that. Geoff paused, loosening his grip on Ray’s arm without letting him go. He seemed hesitant, almost embarrassed. Ray didn’t push it. He knew what Geoff wanted to say, _Ryan was a mistake_ , but he didn’t want to hear it. Ryan wasn’t the problem. He couldn’t be the problem. So he asked the other question, the one he desperately didn’t want answered. “So who’d they hit?”

\---

Ray climbed the stairs all the way to the roof, relying on pure spite to keep his legs moving. When he reached his spot by the air vent, Ryan was already there, freshly showered and changed and halfway through his third cigarette. 

“Oh, hey, thanks for having my back down there, you’re a real pal,” Ray grumbled. He sat down heavily in the other chair and pulled his scope out of his backpack. Ryan leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, a fourth cigarette already ready to go. 

The lady in the apartment across the street was vacuuming, her hair tied up in a loose bun, her glasses slipping halfway down her nose. 

“Have you seen anyone yet?” Ray did not take his eyes off the woman. She was swaying slightly, engrossed in her own world and utterly unaware that she was being watched. 

Ryan shook his head no, the movement slow and deliberate. 

“They’re going to kill you.” Ray said it matter-of-factly, his voice empty of all emotion. He was stuck somewhere between wishing they’d never come back and knowing that things would be significantly worse if they hadn’t. 

“I can’t even begin to tell you how lucky you are that no one died.”

Ryan nodded slowly. 

Ray finally glanced over at him. He was hunched over, the new cigarette already burning low, the mask only barely covering his face. Ray sighed. “Let’s not do this again.”


	10. X

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW - death, murder, etc

There was a war raging in Los Santos. Gavin was still tucked away with some seedy back-alley surgeon waiting for his lungs to start working again, and Geoff’s sniper had abandoned them for a violent sociopath. 

That was the game, he realized. Anatoly had sold him a time bomb and he’d taken it without question. 

It had not been a good few weeks for the kingpin. 

It took some time for anyone in the crew to realize that something was off. It was not unusual for Ray to lock himself in his room for hours, and if Ray wasn’t around it also wasn’t unusual for the Vagabond to be missing. Geoff let several days pass before he started to worry, and then managed to stave off panic until the Fake AH’s biggest club burned to the ground. After that, the handful of cops that Geoff had been paying off were found floating down the river and several of the crew’s safe houses blew up. When Gavin wound up with a metal pipe through his lung during a simple reconnaissance job, that was when Geoff finally lost it. 

“ _The number you are calling has been disconnected. Please hang up and tr-_ ” Geoff snapped his phone closed and threw it hap hazardously onto the table. His hair was sticking out at weird angles and the dark circles under his eyes made him look strung out. 

“The phone isn’t gonna magically connect again just because you’ve called it sixteen times,” Michael said derisively. He was sitting with his eyes fixed on the floorboards, his voice hot and angry but his posture worn and defeated. Geoff refused to look at him. He had been refusing to look at anyone. “I told you buying that asshole was a fucking mistake,” he was building himself up, the momentum threatening to carry into a full-blown rant, and Geoff did not have time for it. 

“If you’re not gonna be helpful you can fucking leave, I don’t need this right now,” Geoff barked. 

Jack finally spoke up from his spot on the couch, “Can you two please stop fighting.” He looked exhausted, almost as exhausted as Geoff, but he wasn’t in charge of a crew that was moments away from falling apart, and he sure as shit didn’t have a city full of thugs burning his world down behind him. 

The penthouse was quiet but the air was charged, waiting for a spark to set it off. 

It stayed that way for several days, the counters gathering dust and the hallways falling into shadow. Geoff tried to hold it together while his empire burned, convinced he’d lost Ray but unable to accept that the kid wouldn’t be coming back. 

And then an Adder came and parked itself right outside the entrance to his apartment building, the purr of the engine floating through his open balcony door. 

Ray, to his credit, looked like hell. Not quite as much as Geoff, but it was obvious he hadn’t showered properly in a while. His hair was singed around the edges, his clothes covered in dirt, and he had the distinct expression of someone who was no longer used to standing in an open lobby. He probably didn’t even notice how obvious it was. Geoff was equal parts relieved and furious to see him. He watched the kid’s expression shift from ashamed to annoyed and back again and all it did was make him more relieved and more furious. 

And then he was gone again, back to the roof, back to the Vagabond. Geoff couldn’t help but notice the way Ray seemed to lose his balance when they weren’t together, like he was free-falling unless he had his shoulder pressed against the Vagabond’s chest. 

Geoff’s biggest mistake wore a skull mask. 

Ray was not surprised that Ryan was back to not talking. At this point he honestly wasn’t sure he could feel properly surprised, or properly anything. Whatever had compelled the Vagabond to speak in the barn had clearly receded, and in its wake he seemed more closed off than ever. Ray thought that maybe he missed it, that maybe he wanted to hear it again, but he wasn’t sure. The silent melancholy that the Vagabond had settled into was familiar now, maybe even comforting. As the days stretched out and the war waged on Ray found himself avoiding the penthouse and instead barricading himself on the roof, watching the neighbors and wishing he was anywhere else. 

“The doctor called today.” His voice bounced around the roof, out of place and unsettling. Ryan, as usual, did not react. He was sitting with his feet against the safety barrier, his chair tipped back on two legs, a cigarette in between his fingers. “She said he’s stable, should be fine, probably back in a few days.” 

Ryan took a long drag from the cigarette and then stood, walking to the edge of the roof to flick the butt toward the ground. Ray watched him out of the corner of his eye without looking away from his scope. 

The sound of the city below pitched up a little, the waves amplified by the glass buildings that funneled them upward. Ryan continued to look down at the street, his arms crossed, his posture tense. If it had been anyone else, Ray would have been sure they were about to unload on him, but it was Ryan. 

“See anything interesting?” No reaction. But that was normal. 

Except it wasn’t. 

Ray let his scope fall into his lap, his eyes now trained on Ryan’s back. Now that he was looking properly, Ray could see that every few moments the muscles on his back and shoulders would twitch, his chest expanding and contracting with barely restrained… _something_. 

For the first time in a very long time Ray was afraid that Ryan was going to kill him. 

When Ryan finally turned sharply ard headed for the door into the building Ray flinched violently, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. The right thing to do would be to follow him, to make sure he didn’t hurt anyone, but fuck that. 

\-----

Los Santos had never been a safe place. Nowadays, the city was at the mercy of several dozen gangs, and before that it was at the mercy of the mafia. Cleaning up the streets just meant leaving a void for any old crew to come and fill. Fake AH filled the space left by a much larger crew, one that had made their fortune in human trafficking before scattering, the bosses finding themselves buried under life sentences and the henchmen worming their way into other crews. 

In the chaos that filled the power vacuum, during the war that eventually put Fake AH in the biggest penthouse in Los Santos, the Vagabond was born. During the deadliest year in Los Santos history his kill count ticked into the triple digits. 

And then he disappeared. 

When the dust finally settled with Geoff Ramsey at the top of a mountain of bodies, the Vagabond emerged under the employ of the Rakers. They were bloodthirsty and impulsive, with a penchant for turning negotiations into slaughters. They didn’t last long. 

The mask bounced between crews, some imploding shortly afterwards, some finding themselves with a lot more notoriety than they were strictly prepared for. Eventually he landed in Anatoly’s gang and settled down. The city forgot. Healed. Moved on. 

The Vagabond did not forget. 

He stood in the bathroom of an abandoned house, scrubbing blood out from under his fingertips with a dirty rag, his breathing ragged and his legs shaking. Reflective pieces of glass littered the floor – the only indication that there used to be a mirror there. Blood poured from deep incisions on his knuckles, replacing the little bit that he had managed to wash away. His scrubbing grew more incessant, his breathing more harsh, and the water more red. Without uttering a sound he dropped the rag and put his fist through the wall in the place where the mirror had been – once, twice, three times. 

The motion shook the house, the creaking of the joints far louder than any sound that may have escaped his lips. He hated the noise. He hated that it reminded him of crying. He hated the fact that he hated crying. 

The living room was dark. The electricity had long since been turned off and the boards on the windows kept the street lights from illuminating the pile of bodies that had accumulated there. Most had died from deep slashes across their throats, and many had angry red marks along their faces and torsos, the skin torn apart by furious scratching. 

The Vagabond sat against the wall, his legs crossed, his hands still bloody, breathing in the scent of death and despair. He could faintly make out the sound of stifled breathing from the other side of the room, a victim that had not given in to death yet. He considered moving to another room, give them a chance to try and escape, but his stomach had started growl. It had been a few days since he’d last eaten. 

His heavy footsteps echoed slightly in the room, prompting the only other living being in the house to hold their breath. 

The girl was clutching to life desperately, determined not to be another face in the paper tomorrow. The Vagabond would have admired her tenacity if admiration had been a thing he could feel. A quiet _please_ fell through her lips as he lifted her easily into the air, carefully tucking her head onto his shoulder before running a shard of mirror through her neck. 

He left the house in flames, comfortable in the knowledge that fire cleanses. 

He crept into the penthouse, quiet and still in the early morning light. He ate cereal and toaster waffles, and then threw up in the bathroom, and then ate more toaster waffles. 

At some point, he fell asleep. 

\----- 

Ray woke up covered in old blood and the smell of smoke. Ryan was half on top of him, his mask discarded on the floor, his body dirty and covered in new scars. 

“Shit,” Ray whispered. He shook Ryan gently, half hoping he wouldn’t wake up. When he didn’t, Ray sighed and untangled himself, desperate to take a shower as soon as possible. 

Once clean, he emerged from his room to find Jack patiently scrubbing blood and dirt off of the kitchen counters. Geoff raised a glass of whiskey to Ray in a mock toast, “The Vagabond finally came back.” 

“Yeah I noticed,” Ray responded. 

Geoff rested the glass gently against his temple and closed his eyes. “Any idea where he was?” 

“Probably Maui.”

“I’m serious.”

“How the fuck would I know?” Ray snapped. 

Geoff sighed and put the glass down. “I can’t fucking deal with this right now. I need to go pick up Gavin.” 

Every muscle in his body told Ray to drop it, but he couldn’t take it anymore. “This isn’t my fault, you know. You keep acting like I wanted him to get all weirdly attached to me, but I didn’t ask for this. You’re the one who fucking hired him.” 

Geoff looked like he wanted yell, and then like he wanted to sleep, and then like he couldn’t possibly care less. And then, to the immense surprise of everyone, he laughed. “You stupid asshole.” He was smiling and shaking his head. 

The sudden change in tone caught Ray off guard. “You’re an asshole,” he replied defensively. 

Geoff laughed again, but the sound was tinged with grief. “I miss Gavin,” he said. 

Ray did, too. “When’s he coming back?” 

“Later today.”

“We should celebrate.”

Geoff raised the glass in his hand again, “I’ve already started!” 

Ray smiled despite himself. He wanted desperately for the penthouse to stop feeling so depressing, to stop feeling so trapped there. 

“You should come with me when I pick him up,” Geoff said. He looked hopeful. He missed Gavin, sure, but he missed Ray, too. 

Ray nodded solemnly. “Yeah that’d be cool.” 

He thought briefly of Ryan asleep in his bedroom, but pushed it aside. He’d deal with that when the time came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait orz. I'd make up an excuse but we'd all know I was lying. Anyway, hope this was acceptable.


End file.
